People didn't always agree that all members of all races are properly regarded as human beings. Some people still don't. What makes you right and them wrong? You can say it's so, but why is it so?
Most people are idiots. I have already pointed out why they are wrong-they're only justification are arbitrary differences of characteristics or functions which does not effect the essential nature of a thing.
My answer is because we all share the characteristic of awareness, and the ability to have this awareness comes from activity in a human brain, and possibly the brains of some other animals closely related to us, so we can tell with reasonable certainty when some form of this awareness might be present, and at other points when it definitely is not.
And as shown threw people asleep, in commas, or just some types of mentally disabled people, "awareness" is as much an arbitrary standard as skin color.
This question is important because just saying "I know what a human being is, it's obvious" opens the door to someone else saying "Well, no, I know what a human being is and it's not what you think" and you've got no defense.
That begs that a defense is needed for self-evident things. Someone says 2+2=5 you have no defense for it either, but you consider the person insane and move on.
You're completely missing the point. That definition is completely arbitrary, but you're treating it like it's absolute and objective.
Pretty much because the Law of Biogenesis is absolute and objective. Things only reproduce after their own kind. If you seriously think your parents were indeed fish, then I have to put you right there with the 2+2=5 guy.
Just because you say something is a human being doesn't make it so, and just because you say it isn't doesn't make it so either. Other people can say different things, and if you've got nothing to back it up other than to say "that's the law of X" then you're stuck.
Pretty much because I have shown that I have more justification than my mere say so. You admit the parents are human beings. You admit the thing in question is a life. That makes it a human being, because that's the facts of the matter. And your attempt to undermine what has been well established logical principles, only shows you to be irrationally grasping.
And now I'm going to give you an example of how just saying something is the law of biogenesis with no backup doesn't work. The core of the pro-choice argument is that an embryo is different from a baby, in that one is properly regarded as a human being while the other is not. As support, they can list off the many things that are present in babies which are not present in embryos. And yet you have nothing because you're stuck saying "a human being is a human being because it's obvious that it's a human being, and human beings were always human beings right from conception because my law of identity says this is so and it's a law".
Yeah, the only problem with this is that it's completely shattered by the question: So? Blacks obviously have something present that are not present in whites. Men obviously have things present that are not in women, and vice versa. Arbitrary characteristics, remember?
Why?
Well if it wasn't for the fact that our knowledge of DNA makes a human being a complete human being from the moment of conception enough, there's the matter of the Laws of Identity and Biogensis again. If it's a life, it will stay the same till it dies. And the kind of parent's it had determine the kind of thing it will be.
No, that doesn't make any sense to me, and if you think it's so you're going to have to demonstrate why. An acorn is an acorn. It may grow into an oak, but it is not an oak. It is the seed of an oak, that is all.
Duh, it's the seed of an oak. That's what makes it an oak. It's an immature oak, but it's still an oak. "Seed" and "tree" are just descriptions about the state of maturity, just like "baby" and "adult" is the state of maturity. There is no being called "seed" nor one a being called "adult." This is rather simple.
Most acorns never grow into oaks, they get eaten or die and get eaten by bacteria, and become nutrients, which then become all kinds of things, some of which I have probably eaten. An acorn is no more an oak than it is me. Feel free to prove me wrong.
Most baby's never grow up to be adults. All you seem to be saying is that sometimes things don't exist for as long a time as others, but that's meaningless to the issue of when a thing is a thing.
And you really, truly, do not see the problem with this?
The problem is that "Not like me" becomes "Not a human being".
And you'll have to show how it's "not like me" in anyway that truly matters. Frankly I don't see the problem when "not like me" is indeed obvious for dogs, cats, or fish. Because they are indeed self-evidently not a human being.
If I understand your "law of identity" correctly, what you're saying is that there is no way to tell, sometimes, if something fits into a particular category, because none of its traits matter, but if it ever might fit into that category at any point in the future, it should be regarded as a member of that category forever.
Actually no, under the Law of Identity a thing will never change it's essential nature for as long as it exists. There will never come a point where it suddenly changes it's essential nature.
That just doesn't work. Things are put into different categories at different times, they very rarely stay in the same category forever. Even the earth used to be a bunch of stars, but it isn't any more. An oak used to be an acorn, but it isn't any more. You might say that oaks make acorns which make oaks, but oaks make acorns which make animals which make humans too.
I think you may have missed something self-evident with "for as long as it exists".
Really. Ok, well there are breeds of coyote right now which are going extinct, but breeding with wolves instead of "their own kind" to stay alive.
Pfft. I think you just get caught up in what is a rather common objection with science. The term "species" has become quite nebulous under science, but "kind" has not. Coyote's breeding with wolves comes as no surprise, especially in a Creationist model, because both are essentially the same kind of animal.
For humans, we have the ability to splice all kinds of genes together. If we've had fish DNA spliced into ours to fix a genetic condition, is the result a human being, or would you be OK with killing it? Could such a being have human children? You might think this is a ridiculous question and such a thing could never be done. But one of the major agricultural corproations (can't remember which, I think it might be Monsanto, it was in a documentary I listened to on the BBC about a year or so ago) is making a pig with the genes to create the fatty acids in fish oil, by splicing fish genes into the pig's genes. Similar things will eventually be done with humans, and we need to see that coming and think through the implications for how we define humanity.
You know when someone is losing an arguement when they turn to hypotheticals in the middle of it. And none of that really makes me bat an eye. Not because I think such things are impossible, but because such things have nothing to do with turning one thing into another. What it has to do is giving the ability of one thing to another thing. Functionality is arbitrary, remember?
Even without human intervention, the lines between different species are indistinct continuums, not immutable and distinct as you seem to think.
Pretty much because science has a patent definition for "species" that makes it so. "Species" is of no concern, however so much as "kind" is.
I dispute the correctness of the "laws" of biogenesis and identity, then. (Although as I understood it all the law of biogenesis said was that life cannot, in the very beginning, come from non-living matter, and I'm not sure how you worked that up to support your argument, as I've never argued an embryo was not alive). As you have constructed them, these "laws" make no sense. An acorn is not an oak, and defining "human parents" with no reference to objective criteria of what makes a human parent different from a non-human one, treating it as if the distinction is obvious and universally recognized in direct opposition to the evidence of history, is dangerous.
Then you must be considered insane then. You want to consider that your parents have no distinction from a fish, that's your business. But given how your justifications seem to amount to how slavery and genocide were justified (pointing to characteristics and functionality), I'd say you are courting the mistakes of history far more than I am.
